Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m 34 years old, been married to Kim for 12 years and we have four children, Taylor (7), Autumn (5), Emery (3), and Mya (20 months). We currently are living in Albuquerque until we move to Madison in early June to plant The Vine. I graduated from Covenant Theological Seminary in 2009 with a Masters in Theological Studies. I have worked in three different larger churches in the last 13 years. Doing smaller church will be something that will be new to us, but we're looking forward to it’s unique challenges and blessings.
When did you personally sense the call to plant a church in Madison?
After Scott Sterner and I decided that we wanted to go for it, Madison seemed to be the logical choice for a church in the Midwest. There is huge need there, it’s close to family, and it’s a GREAT city.
What did your wife say, how did you guys work through this?
My wife is a rock star. She is more full of faith and adventurous than I am. She has always been consistently supportive of my leading us into crazy endeavors. She was very affirming of it at the initial stages and this has continued throughout the planning process. We both feel that life goes by too fast and God’s call is too huge to play it safe and not take risks for the Kingdom.
As a musician, how do you view you roll and call in this church plant and how have you prepared for this?
I’ll be the one who leads the musical side of things, but we have other guys who can serve in this way as well. There are three of us that are planting together. We all plan to share the preaching and various other roles. I am looking forward to preaching more and have experienced more of that in my ministry in recent days. I’ll also be charged with our leadership development program at The Vine. We seek to be a church planting church and anyone who knows anything about church planting knows that leadership development is one of the main things a church like this needs to focus on.
What was the process for planning this church plant?
1. Choose the city2. Get Acts29 affiliation established3. Raise a ton of money (we started last October and still have a decent amount to go)4. Lots of meetings with the three of us via Skype
These are the main things we have been doing before we actually get on the ground in Madison in June/July.
Acts 29 is an organization that your church plant is connected to. Why did you choose Acts 29, and how have they helped with this plan?
Acts29 is phenomenal. They provide outstanding relationships and training to help new church planters be successful. They have a 98% success rate for those who pass their assessment process and we feel very excited to align ourselves with them. We greatly value their emphasis on theology, missional living, and reproduction of churches through church planting.
When will you move to Madison, and once you are there, what will be the initial work/plan?
Networking like crazy. Initially, we desire to spread the word about The Vine on a grassroots level through relationships. I’ll buy coffee or lunch for anyone who is willing to sit down and talk with me about what God is up to in Madison or how a church could serve the city of Madison. We will start meeting in my basement right off the bat and then once we out grow that (God-willing) we will move into some sort of rented space. Based on the response we have received thus far it sounds like it might not take long to be out of our basement. We hold these plans loosely and will respond as best we can to whatever God brings to us.
What are some of the core values or distinctives of the Vine?
Our Vision for ministry reads as follows:Gospel:
The Gospel is the good news that through Christ the power of God’s kingdom has entered history to renew the whole world. This renewing work of Jesus is what saves us from our sin and transforms us into people who live like him. The Vine is a church where the Gospel is not merely a message for people who don’t know Jesus, but also a message for believers that shapes every facet of the church.
At The Vine, our value for Gospel-centered ministry will drive us to preach, teach, and sing about the grace of God that can save those who don’t yet believe and empower believers to live in obedience. This Gospel-centered vision will also express itself as we conclude our weekly community services celebrating the Lord’s Table, remembering Christ’s body that was broken and blood that was shed, proclaiming the Lord’s death until the day of his return.
Community:
The Gospel is not just a message to be believed, but a power to be experienced. The gospel shapes a new community as those who were formerly God’s enemies are reconciled to Him and adopted into his family. The Vine is not a place, but a people – a community that is continually being reformed, renewed, and reproduced by the transforming power of the gospel.
At The Vine, our value for community will drive us to be a simple church that resists complicated program-driven ministry models. Because of this, our community will be expressed in primarily two forms, the community worship service and City Groups. Our City Groups will be smaller communities that live out Gospel, Community, and Mission together. City Groups are where the church is the church to one another and the city.
Mission:
The Gospel doesn’t merely call us into a relationship with Christ and one another, it also sends us out into the world on mission. The Vine is a church that seeks to both embody and proclaim the Gospel winsomely in the city of Madison. The embodiment of the Gospel will be expressed in our love for the city as we seek to meet its various needs. The proclamation of the Gospel will be expressed through our intentional relationships with people who don’t know Jesus. We will seek to love them and share Christ with them right where they are in our own network of relationships.
At The Vine, our value for mission will drive us to develop future leaders for the purpose of releasing them to become tomorrow’s ministers, missionaries, and church planters. Our vision is not only to build one church, but to build a movement of the Gospel expressing itself in the reduplication of both disciples and churches both locally and around the world.
Your blog Take Your Vitamin Z is quite popular. Will you be able to blog as much when the church launches?
I certainly hope to continue my blogging. It is a great resource for me to document many different things that I think are significant and provides a context for continued learning and theological/cultural reflection.
How can we specifically pray for you and the church right now?
Nate (our pastor of teaching and outreach) needs to sell his house and all three of us still are working hard to finish our fundraising. We are seeking to raise a three year budget and for us this is around 3/4 million. We also would love prayer for gathering the right people who are passionate about our vision for church. Pray that they would be sold out for God, the Gospel, and his mission.
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